Banned Food Ingredients

Not being properly trained to cook, you, like me, may feel free to come up with your own ideas about what to combine to make a dish. It’s a natural inclination.

This is how it works. You take a look at that dish you’re working on. It just seems, wimpy. You think, let’s put some cheese in it. And some mustard. And sunflower seeds. And let’s see what else is handy in the fridge.

Now, it may come as a surprise to find this kind of creative kitchen activity is not universally appreciated. In fact, for many women it is downright alarming. Like when the Secret Service learn an escaped psychotic in a clown suit and a small plane is heading to meet the President. You just want to share a brainstorm you’ve had. They believe you are the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse, with incredibly bad taste.

I have no idea what originally caused people to start putting sticks, leaves, and whatnot together to come up with things like ice cream and apple pie. Or, beef stroganoff. But I tell you, it’s pretty hard not to want to try a bit of this and shake of that, just to see how it will turn out.

Unfortunately, this is against the laws of nature. The outcome of your food efforts will be a concoction, and concoctions are biblically banned in all fifty states, and not allowed in the kitchen, or on the table, of decent people. In fact, little girls are warned about what will happen if men are allowed to make concoctions, and mothers will protect their broods from them. Mothers who discover sons with such tendencies usually steer them into chemistry, or becoming Bobby Flay.

Men cannot be trusted to just make things up in the kitchen, because unlike women, we are likely to use ‘weird’ ingredients. These are ingredients which look innocent enough on the shelf, but have been legally determined cannot to be brought together in any edible dish. I don’t have the list for you yet, but I’m working on it.

The bad news is, once you’ve been caught, there’s no shaking the stigma. My kids won’t sit down to any meal I’ve fixed without asking, ‘Daddy, what’s in this?’, so they can decide whether to skip it. Or need to tell their mother I’m doing voodoo on the family again.

My advice – the wise man in the kitchen will resist the temptation of discovery. Just give em what they want during the week, and let your wife take poison control off speed dial.

Keep watching here for that list, or if you have a minute, send along some combinations you’ve uncovered yourself.